Technology archive for 2011-10-01

It looks like the iPhone speculation train is gaining steam on the way to its final destination, and this time it's flying by Cincinnati Bell's pre-paid service, i-Wireless. A helpful tipster sent in the above screenshot of an iPhone 5 placeholder, accompanied by a $639.99 price tag and a handful of specs: 32GB, 4-inch screen and 4G data speeds. Our friends over at TUAW have also procured a screenshot (after the break) from the same site, displaying a $99.99 16GB iPhone 4S, sporting a 5MP camera, 3.5-inch screen and an A5 processor. Of course, there's also a chance these are just placeholders, but we're hoping Tuesday's announcement will bear dual fruits, nonetheless.[Thanks, Cory]Continue reading iPhone 5 / 4S placeholders pop up at Cincinnati Bell, questionable specs in towiPhone 5 / 4S placeholders pop up at Cincinnati Bell, questionable specs in tow originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Oct 2011 17:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | | Email this | Comments

tekgoblin writes "AT&T has started tossing out warnings for users that fall into the top 5% of data users on their wireless network. AT&T announced this change back in July and is now starting to actually enforce it." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:iPhone 4S with iPhone 4 design, dual-mode capability leaked by iTunes — While we have independently been expecting the new iPhone to feature little exterior differences from the iPhone 4, there still has been some debate over the new iPhone's design. Today, rumors of a re-design can essentially be put to rest.

Although Nokia still hopes Windows Phone will round out a "three-horse race" with iOS and Android, it's said to be cooking up an entirely new operating system aimed at lower-end handsets. According to the Wall Street Journal, the OS (codenamed "Meltemi") is meant to cement Nokia's top dog status in emerging markets, where feature phones remain king. Makes sense: low-end phones accounted for 47 percent of the company's device-and-services earnings in the second quarter. We're not sure if the adage "when one door closes, another one opens" exactly applies here, but either way, it looks like we've hardly seen the end of software updates out of Suomi.Nokia developing 'Meltemi' OS for feature phones? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Oct 2011 16:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | WSJ | Email this | Comments

An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla is developing its own 3D engine called Gladius as part of a wider Paladin project whose aim it is to bring 3D to the web. As all programmers know, the best way to learn is to experiment, and that's exactly what Mozilla is doing. In order to develop Gladius the team decided to create a game called RescueFox (best played in Firefox). It's a very basic prototype, and Mozilla has no interest in taking it further, but the purpose it served was to highlight what still needs to be done to make Gladius a solid web browser 3D engine solution." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:Google Panda 2.5: Losers Include Today Show, The Next Web; Winners Include YouTube, Fox News — Searchmetrics has a pretty good track record of figuring out who lost after one of Google's Panda Updates. Among the latest victims of this week's Panda Update 2.5, some unexpected surprises …

New submitter quax writes "Michael Nielsen, who co-authored the book on Quantum Computing, released a set of short video lectures on his blog this summer (link to Google cache). They make a great introduction to the subject. But here's the catch: Due to other work responsibilities, he stopped short of completing the course, and will only complete it if he sees enough interest in the videos. Let's show him some numbers." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

jjp9999 writes "More than 70,000 websites were compromised in a recent breach of InMotion. Thousands of websites were defaced and others had alterations made to give users a hard time accessing their accounts and fixing the damage. A similar attack hit JustHost back in June, and in a breach of Australian Web host DistributeIT just prior to that, hackers completely deleted more than 4,800 websites that the company was unable to recover. The incidents raise concern that hacker groups are bypassing single targets and hitting Web hosts directly, giving them access to tens of thousands of websites, rather than single targets. While the attacks have caused damage, they weren't as malicious as they could have been. Rather than defacing and deleting, hackers could have quietly planted malware in the sites or stolen customer data. Web hosting companies could be one of the largest holes in non-government cybersecurity, since malicious hackers can gain access through openings left by the Web host, regardless of the security of a given site." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:iOS's Internet market share hits a record 54.65% — And where is Android? Still trailing Java ME, according to Net Applications — Data: Net Applications. Chart: PED — You would think that with nearly 50% of the global market for smartphones that Google's (GOOG) Android would also dominate the Web.

Could it be? Are the rumors true? If this screenshot, apparently culled from Radio Shack's inventory system, is any indication, Sprint will indeed be among the carriers offering the iPhone 5. That lines up just right with previous reports from Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, slating the phone to hit the Now Network in mid-October. There's no indication of actual dates at this point, but if Sprint's getting Apple's next-gen iPhone, we're guessing we'll hear more about it on Tuesday.[Thanks, Anon]Radio Shack inventory screen pegs iPhone 5 for Sprint originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Oct 2011 14:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | | Email this | Comments

itwbennett writes "Nokia is going after the low-end smartphone market with a Linux-based OS code-named 'Meltemi.' The phones are expected to cost under $100 without subsidies. A Nokia spokesman's no-comment comment went like this: 'Of course, we don't comment on future products or technologies. However, I can say that our Mobile Phones team has a number of exciting projects in the works that will help connect the next billion consumers to the Internet.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Josh Constine / Inside Facebook:Facebook's News Feed Changes May Be Reducing Impressions, Increasing Feedback for Page Posts — Since Facebook combined the Top News and Most Recent tabs into a single, hybrid news feed last week, we've been watching for fluctuations in the volume of Page posts and other content types seen on the site's home page.

Wall Street Journal:BlackBerry Maker's Issue: Gadgets for Work or Play? — As Research In Motion Ltd. executives prepared early this year for the launch of their first tablet, the PlayBook, one big question loomed: Who was the device for? — Some executives, like RIM's technical visionary …

Well, after the termination of 50 Cent's alignment with Sleek, it was only a matter time before the rapper's SMS Audio company filled the void. (After all, how do you know your cans are quality if they haven't been endorsed by a man who was shot nine times and survived.) We don't know when the wireless SYNC by 50 headphones will arrive or how much they'll cost, but you can bet the part-time actor and entrepreneur will be making the rounds, trying to sell us on the 40mm driver, 50-foot range, "professionally tuned digital EQ" and noise cancellation. While the integrated music controls are nice, our favorite feature might be the ability to connect four sets of SYNCs to the same source. Check out the gallery below and a few choice specs from the data sheet after the break.Gallery: SYNC by 50Continue reading Fiddy Cent gets into the headphone game with SYNC by 50, countdown to Ford lawsuit begins... nowFiddy Cent gets into the headphone game with SYNC by 50, countdown to Ford lawsuit begins... now originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Oct 2011 13:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | | Email this | Comments

An anonymous reader writes "According to a manufacturing cost breakdown, it turns out Amazon is willing to sell its new Kindle Fire at a $10 loss. An analyst estimates that the Kindle Fire, priced at $199, actually costs $209.63 to produce. That said, the device is likely to be much more valuable to Amazon through content sales and the ability to drive more purchases through its website." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jennifer Van Grove / Mashable!:How Apple and Facebook Nearly Fell Out — Over the HP TouchPad [EXCLUSIVE] — Tech titans Facebook and Apple have a contentious relationship that is frequently put to the test. But a Facebook for TouchPad application was very nearly the last straw, Mashable has learned from multiple sources.

theodp writes "Hal in 2001: 'I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that [open the pod bay doors].' Kinect in 2011: 'I'm sorry, Dave Jr. I'm afraid I can't do that [tune in to the Spice Channel].' A Microsoft patent filing made public this week proposes to restrict access to TV, movies and video games by using a 3D depth camera to estimate viewers' ages based upon the dimensions and proportions of a person's body, such as head width to shoulder width, and torso length to overall height. For adults with short arms or other seemingly childlike proportions, settings can be overridden by someone with an administrator password." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Business Insider:Facing Low Bids For A Site That's Working, Hulu's Parents May Not Sell At All — Hulu's owners are reconsidering whether to sell the company at all because the bids are not coming in as high as they hoped. — Two sources say that Hulu is less likely to sell now given recent market developments.

This week was packed with news on the mobile front, so it was easy to miss a few stories here and there. Here's some of the other stuff that happened in the wide world of wireless for the week of September 26, 2011: Last week we heard the rumor that Sprint would be launching the BlackBerry Curve 9350 on October 2nd, and we've finally received the official confirmation. The device will be hitting stores tomorrow for $80 with a two-year contract. [PhoneArena] The Motorola Photon WiMAX, referred to as the Photon 4G in the US, is now making its way to Japan as KDDI announced the launch of the device this past Monday. [Motorola] Verizon Wireless launched the Pantech Jest 2 this week, which is a feature phone with a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard. [Verizon Wireless] The Samsung Galaxy Y is now listed as "coming soon" on O2's website, which makes it the second carrier to announce upcoming availability in the UK. The actual date of release, however, is still unofficial. [O2] Softbank (Japan) looks ready to land the ZTE Lord V882, which appears to be an Android device running on Gingerbread, and comes packed with a 1GHz CPU, 512MB of RAM, 3.8-inch LCD at WVGA resolution and a 5MP camera. [LandofDroid] NTT DoCoMo and Orange have teamed up to offer the Sharp AQUOS SH80F, which features dual 8MP stereoscopic cameras and claims to be the world's first Android device capable of converting 2D content into 3D in real time. It'll first be launched in France on October 6th and[..]

New submitter Jimme Blue writes "An employee of the State Department is under investigation and may be fired for 'disclosing classified information.' Or, as others might call it, posting a link to WikiLeaks. 'His crime, he said, was a link he posted on August 25 in a blog post discussing the hypocrisy of recent U.S. actions against Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffi. The link went to a 2009 cable about the sale of U.S. military spare parts to Qadaffi through a Portuguese middleman. ... The State Department investigators, he said, demanded to know who had helped him with his blog and told him that every blog post, Facebook post, and tweet by State Department employees had to be pre-cleared by the Department prior to publication." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Michael Arrington / UNCRUNCHED:Brutal Honesty — There are a lot of different kinds of people in this world. I've found that I get along best with the ones that are brutally honest. — Earlier this evening I interviewed Vinod Khosla at the jam-packed Startup Weekend Seattle event. We had a long talk …

Jeff Roberts / paidContent:Pandora Smacked With Class Action For Revealing User Profiles — Pandora (NYSE: P) is the latest company to stumble into the minefield of privacy lawsuits that are blowing up all over the tech industry. A new complaint says the Internet radio provider violated the privacy of its Michigan subscribers …

wiredmikey writes with this excerpt from a Wall Street Journal report:"The U.S. ushered in a new CIA-led counterterrorism program in Yemen on Friday, sending unmanned aircraft to kill an American-born cleric who occupied a top place on the U.S.'s anti-terrorist list. The death of Anwar al-Awlaki eliminates a leading figure in Yemen's branch of al Qaeda and one of its most charismatic recruiters. A Web-savvy Islamic preacher with sparkling English, Mr. Awlaki was known for his ability to couch extremist views in ways that appealed to Western youth. He had been linked to suspects in the 2009 Fort Hood, Texas, shooting spree and the botched bombing of a Detroit-bound jet that Christmas." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (Reuters) - The lights went out. Hackers had infiltrated the chemical company's computer network. The firm's own experts ran around from computer to computer trying to fight back and regain control.

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (Reuters) - The lights went out. Hackers had infiltrated the chemical company's computer network. The firm's own experts ran around from computer to computer trying to fight back and regain control.

Just two months to go, and gamers of the Sony persuasion can get their thumbs-on the PS Vita. While we were getting comfy with the available list of this PSP successor's dos and don'ts, out comes further info to rain on our anticipated PlayStation Suite parade. According to a report from ASCII, game downloads over 3G connections will be limited to a max of 20MB. What does that mean for you, prospective buyer? Well, kiss that 500 - 600 strong library of PSP titles goodbye, and say hello to a catalog of minis. Sure, you could always hook up to some decent WiFi to purchase and play those old favorites uninterrupted, but that kind of defeats this portable's on-the-go design. Rest assured, this download cap could still change before the handheld launches in the US and UK. And anyway, you didn't think you were going to get far on that three to five hour charge, now did you?Sony PS Vita caps 3G downloads at 20MB, encourages extensive mini play originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Oct 2011 08:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Joystiq, Andriasang | ASCII (Translated) | Email this | Comments

packetrat writes "I was at OmniTI's Surge conference today, which turned out to be, among other things, a meeting of the cult of DevOps. Ars Technica covered the keynote and some of the presentations, but some of the best stuff is in the comments. Google CIO Ben Fried told the tale of a really poorly engineered trading application at Morgan Stanley that he was associated with, and how the way IT was structured there contributed to that engineering and to its spectacular failure, costing the bank untold millions in stock trade processing fees from its institutional customers. He said what he learned from cleaning up the mess has informed how Google runs its IT operations, and a culture that promotes generalist skills. A lot of how he describes Google's approach sounds like the DevOps kool-aid a lot of the other speakers were serving, but it also sounds like common sense — are most IT organizations really that poorly run that developers are totally unaware their software is sending messages that are generating network storms, or network engineers are clueless enough about QoS to route leased lines into their data center through their public-facing Internet?" Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Enigmax / TorrentFreak:Record-Breaking BitTorrent Lawsuit Decimated — Working alongside Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver law firm (better known as the U.S. Copyright Group), Voltage Pictures have been in the headlines time and again this year. Not for their movie-making skills, but for the copyright settlement shakedown built around their products.

Do you like to play rough? Good, then this Kodak's for you. Up for pre-order on the imaging company's website, is an update to the Playfull we got eyes-on with at CES earlier this year -- except this handheld camera's waterproof, as well as dustproof and drop-proof (although, only "onto plywood"). The slim 720p shooter weighs in at about 85 grams and sports a 2-inch LCD display, HDMI out, pop-out USB 2.0 and an SD card slot expandable up to 32GB. Kodak's offering this pocket and pool-friendly portable in mid to late October with a premium $120 price tag set for the black version, and the white at a lesser $100. If your high-end smartphone's just not cutting the HD-recording mustard, go ahead and hit up that source link below.Kodak's Waterproof Playfull records your pool parties in 720p, lets you relive that belly flop originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Oct 2011 07:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Electronista | Kodak | Email this | Comments

Matth / Nielsen Wire:Top US Web Brands — Google was the most visited website during August 2011 with 176 million unique U.S. visitors. The Top Sites among U.S. web users remained largely the same as the month before, with Amazon increasing its rank to become the 9th most visited site during August 2011.

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:Buying Yahoo Is A No-Brainer For Alibaba — Today at the China 2.0 conference at Stanford, Alibaba Groups's Jack Ma replied to a pointed question about buying Yahoo with, “We are very interested in Yahoo. Our Alibaba group is important to Yahoo and Yahoo is important to us …

In his first accepted submission, pjstevns writes "The heat is on! With the rising use of online systems for school administration the battle for open and accessible solutions is here, now. Parents are forced to buy 'proper' operating systems from your favorite Redmond based supplier — just to be able to access their childrens' grades, or participate in classes. A petition addressed at parliament for proper implementation of the open-standards guidelines put forward by the Dutch government itself is buzzing around the Netherlands. Comply or Explain!"It seems like a major supplier of education software in the Netherlands has written essential software in Silverlight that all students must use, claiming "...Magister is truly multiplatform because Silverlight is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux" despite it more or less being non-functional with Moonlight. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chances are you don't need a machine to know that the office stresses you out, but if you've ever felt an urge to actually quantify the toll your boss takes on your body, the Compact Stress Meter could be your new best buddy. Developed by researchers at Tokyo Metropolitan University, this system uses a pulse wave sensor and infrared reflective probe to measure the blood flowing through a user's fingertips, which serves as a relatively accurate stress index. All you have to do is place your finger on the sensor for ten seconds, and an accompanying computer program will automatically display your stress levels in real-time by analyzing variations in blood flow. At this point, the software and sensor are still separate, though the meter's developers have already completed a new prototype with the sensor built in to a mouse, allowing users to continuously gauge their stress while diligently working in front of their computers, or while furiously searching for a new job. Click past the break to see the meter in action for yourself.Continue reading Compact Stress Meter provides checkups from the comfort of your cubicle (video)Compact Stress Meter provides checkups from the comfort of your cubicle (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Oct 2011 05:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | DigInfo (YouTube) | Email this | Comments

Wall Street Journal:Shift in Sentiment Toward China's Internet Darlings — BEIJING—A series of alleged frauds at little-known Chinese companies listed in the U.S. has triggered a stunning shift in sentiment among investors, who are now dumping even the darlings of the Chinese Internet as they focus on hidden business risks.

Samsung's just announced the newest and fastest version of its Exynos mobile processor. The 4212 is a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 clocked to 1.5GHz, built using a 32mn process that makes it 30 percent more efficient and 25 percent faster than the 4210. Last year's model was capable of many impressive feats, but its 3D abilities were hampered by the limits imposed by the its HDMI 1.3 controller. The new boy gets version 1.4 and hence the freedom to run stereoscopic imagery at an impressive 70fps. The chips will be available in Q4 of this year, but only to "select customers" who -- we guess -- look after Mr and Mrs. Samsung's cats over the holidays. The chip comes too late for the Galaxy S II LTE but we can expect to see it in future superphones before too long. At the same time, the company released a 16 megapixel CMOS sensor designed for mobile devices. It can shoot stills at the quoted figure and is theoretically capable of 30fps video at around half that, although we're unlikely to see a device that can record 8 megapixel video in the near future. If you hadn't guessed, "select customers" will get their extra-polite hands on the Samsung S5K2P1 in November, other OEMs will have to wait outside, in the snow. Of course, as everyone knows, it's not about how big your megapixel count is, it's what you do with 'em that really counts.Continue reading Samsung releases 1.5GHz Exynos processor and 16MP CMOS for mobiles, if you're niceSamsung releases 1.5GHz Exynos processor and 16MP[..]

sydneyhype writes "The Australian National Broadband Network is open for business. The 14,000 residents on the first roll-out will be able to order an NBN service (current ISP contract permitting). Internode, Exetel, and iiNet have released their commercial pricing. iiNet has undercut Internode with prices starting at $49.95 per month for 12Mbps down and 1Mbps up with 20gb on-peak and 20gb off-peak." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

John Cook / GeekWire:Vinod Khosla invests in Michael Arrington's CrunchFund — Michael Arrington and Vinod Khosla at Startup Weekend EDU in Seattle. (Photos via: Bootstrapper Studios). — At a talk this evening on the University of Washington campus, it didn't take long for Michael Arrington to break some news …

Ina Fried / AllThingsD:Finally, the Tablet to Make HP and RIM Feel Better About Themselves — There have been some pretty bad attempts to take on the iPad over the past year, but things reached a new low last night. — On NBC's “The Office,” the fictional Dunder Mifflin team was forced to sell a triangle-shaped tablet, dubbed the Pyramid.

The FunBox is a bedside alarm clock but it's also a widget-running Chumby, which means it'll let you check your twitter feeds, load up a track on Pandora or do other inappropriately stimulating activities right before catching some Zs. The device has just passed through the FCC and its paperwork reveals a 3.5-inch (possibly resistive) touch screen, a 454MHz processor, 1GB DDR memory, SD card slot and a USB port for an external drive. We couldn't tell you price or availability at this stage, but with top smartphones increasingly coming with night dock accessories the FunBox is hardly likely to find a guaranteed perch beside our pillow.Still awake? There's a Chumby FunBox app for that originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Wireless Goodness | FCC | Email this | Comments

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:Major Usenet Provider Ordered to Remove All Infringing Content — Two years ago BREIN, representing the movie and music industries, took News-Service.com (NSE) to court. — The group demanded that the Usenet provider delete all infringing content from its servers, and today the Court of Amsterdam sided with the copyright holders.

First time accepted submitter FlatEric521 writes "The BBC is reporting that for the first time since 1996 IBM's market value has exceeded Microsoft's. The values cap a sustained period in which IBM's share price has moved steadily upward as Microsoft's has generally been in decline. Of course, Apple is still the #1 company by far." Read more of this story at Slashdot.